ShelleyAbrahams

GREAT BARRINGTON -- Shelley Jean Abrahams, 46, of 15 Pleasant St. died Thursday at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York City.

Born in Paterson, N.J., on May 15, 1961, daughter of Olive Popper Schuster and the late Martin Schuster, she attended schools in Hawthorne, N.J. She earned her bachelor's in nursing at William Paterson College in Wayne, N.J., and her master's in psychology from Hunter College in New York City.

Mrs. Abrahams was employed by Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center and by New York University Medical Center as a clinical nurse specialist in oncology. She also worked at Berkshire Hematology and Oncology in Great Barrington and at Genentech, an oncology biotech company based in San Francisco, two years ago.

She was a marathon runner, a gardener and a member of Hevreh of Southern Berkshire.

She married Edward D. Abrahams in 1997, and they moved to Great Barrington from New York City in 2000.

Besides her mother, of Port Charlotte, Fla., she leaves two daughters, Lily and Anna Abrahams, both at home; two brothers, Michael Schuster of Hudson, Fla., and David Schuster of Hawthorne, N.J.; and two sisters, Sharon Germano of Hawthorne and Susan Osterman of Williamstown, Vt.

FUNERAL NOTICE -- Services for Shelley Jean Abrahams, who died Thursday, July 19, 2007, will be conducted at Hevreh of Southern Berkshire on Sunday at 10 a.m. by Rabbi Deborah Zecher. Burial will follow in Ahavath Sholom Cemetery in Great Barrington. Shiva will begin following the burial at Hevreh and will continue at the Abrahams home throughout the evening. Shiva will continue Monday and Tuesday beginning at 2 p.m.; there will be a service at the Abrahams home each day at 5 p.m. Memorial contributions may be made to Hevreh of Southern Berkshire, in care of BIRCHES-ROY FUNERAL HOME, 33 South St., Great Barrington, MA. She was a devoted wife and mother, a nurse and an educator. Besides her husband and daughters, she leaves 11 nieces and nephews and an entire community stunned and dismayed at her untimely death.